Study documents headaches experienced by astronauts in space

Research in the expanding field of space medicine has identified many ways in which a microgravity environment and other factors can meddle with the human body during space missions. The headaches occurring during the early period often present as migraine-like while those experienced later in space travel present more like a tension headache, the study found. “We hypothesize that different mechanisms are involved for the early headache episodes - the first one to two weeks in space - versus later headache episodes,” said neurologist WPJ van Oosterhout of Zaans Medical Center and the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Neurology. Due to microgravity, there is more fluid accumulating in the upper part of the body and head, resulting in higher pressure in the skull.” Migraines experienced on Earth are often throbbing and pulsating headaches lasting four to seven hours, accompanied by symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and hypersensitivity to light and sound, Van Oosterhout said. “The honest answer is that we don’t know the effects of long-duration space travel - possibly years - on the human body,” Van Oosterhout said.